fishbag and fleabag

Fish (e.g. Golden Orfe) and “Water fleas” (Daphnia) are able to recognise toxic changes in their water environment through their very sensitive sensory system and react accordingly with a measurable behavioural change. In many places the behavioural patterns of this river organism are therefore monitored computer-assisted to be able to check the water quality of a river in real time. The measurable behaviour of the organism is taken as an real time indicator for water quality.

The art and science projects fishbag and fleabag use this water quality measuring results in order to control the course of an artistic visualisation reflecting the changes in the water quality. Therefore changes of usually hidden substances in the water are artistically designed and conducted live by the measured results, i.e. by the behaviour of organism swimming in the river water. The artistic transformation of the measuring results perceivably reflects changes in the water quality of the river.

The behaviour of fish or “water fleas” and hence the quality of the river water is analysed scientifically. The analysis is carried out using an early warning system, the so-called Toximeter, which is already employed in various countries. There the organism (fish or “water fleas”) are swimming in a chamber with constantly running fresh river water, which is monitored by cameras in order to allow a real time computation of the behaviour changes. The measuring results are then transferred to the application of fishbag respectively fleabag and become there the controlling live factors of the visualisation, which will be projected into the media sculpture.